A Time to Kill (1996)

In the town of Canton, Mississippi, ten-year-old African American Tonya Hailey is abducted, raped, and beaten by two local white men, Billy Ray Cobb and James Willard. The duo dump her in a nearby river after a failed attempt to hang her. Tonya survives, and the two men are arrested by Sheriff Ozzie Walls. Tonya’s father, Carl Lee Hailey, contacts Jake Brigance, a white lawyer who previously defended his brother. Brigance admits the possibility that the rapists will walk free. Carl Lee goes to the county courthouse and opens fire with an automatic rifle, killing both rapists and unintentionally injuring Deputy Dwayne Looney, whose leg is later amputated. Carl Lee is arrested and Brigance agrees to defend him.

The rape and subsequent revenge killing gain national media attention. The district attorney, Rufus Buckley, decides to seek the death penalty, and presiding Judge Omar Noose denies Brigance a change of venue to a more ethnically-diverse county, meaning that Carl Lee will have an all-white jury. Brigance seeks help from his defense team: law student Ellen Roark, close friend Harry Rex Vonner, and former mentor and longtime activist Lucien Wilbanks, a once-great civil rights lawyer. Meanwhile, Billy Ray’s brother, Freddie Lee Cobb, plans to avenge his brother’s death by joining and enlisting the help of the Mississippi branch of the Ku Klux Klan and its Grand Dragon, Stump Sisson.